What does this mean for the consumer? Well most vendors will not have smartphones, tablets or portable TV’s capable of mobile reception for sale until late 2012. So forget about buying a TV set for your car this Christmas. It will still be a portable DVD player under the tree, more than two years & three months after the analog TV shutdown.

FLO’s Demise A Lesson for OMVC ?

What lessons does the impending shutdown of FLO TV have for the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC)? Probably just one: It is not good to be way out front with a new technology or be too late out of the gate.

Our friends at the ATSC wanted the best engineering solution rather than the most flexible. (Like CODFM.) It was only when the bean counters made the engineers realize that over-the-air television was a non-issue for 90% of the country, that thought was given to the potential market of non-stationary TV devices. (A revenue loss of 10% per year will make people rethink their business model.)

So will Mobile DTV take off or has the past 15 months of digital transmission soured the potential mobile audience?